Tom Chilton Talks World Of Warcraft II And Warlords Of Draenor

I sat down with World of Warcraft game director Tom Chilton at Gamescom 2014 to talk a bit about the upcoming Warlords of Draenor and the possibility of a World of Warcraft II.

WoW turns ten this year, and despite regular expansion enhancements the game is feeling the strain of its long and successful life. I asked Chilton if we could see a World of Warcraft II and what that might entail.

“Definitely. It’s something we have talked about. It’s something we have talked about for ten years.I think that there are a lot of challenges there in seeing how World of Warcraft II relates to World of Warcraft, do they live alongside each other, does one feed into the other, what is that product, etc. These are challenges that have to be figured out before that becomes a reality.”While we’ve explored a bit of Warlords of Draenor’s garrison player-housing already, Chilton spoke a bit about how players can visit each other and some additional garrison/outpost functionality.

Players can be invited to other people’s garrisons via the party menu, and this is more than just fun visiting - Players will be able to help each other defend garrisons from various attacks, and during difficult sieges assistance from your friends gives you a higher chance of success and its associated rewards.

“There’s a pet area in your garrison, you can face off against pets in the garrison. You’ll acquire outposts in other zones that give you a choice of two different buildings that might give you some alternative ways to experience the zone,” says Chilton.

“For example in one zone you’ll have a choice between a sparring arena which will allow you to get these ogre bodyguards that you can call in or build a lumber mill to gain access to a shredder that you can use inside the zone. In Nagrand, you’ll choose between the workshop and the stables. In the stables, you actually get a mount that you can ride in combat. So you get mounted combat if you go in that direction, if you build the workshop you can build a siege vehicle or demolisher and drive around the zone blowing stuff up.”

The new garrison-driven follower system seems like a natural fit for a mobile app, so I asked Chilton if there’s a possibility players could control their followers using the existing WoW mobile app.

“We’ve certainly considered it, it’s just a question of time/engineering/resources. It’s not something we were able to do for launch. If people really enjoy it and want it maybe it’s something we do down the line.”